MHNFS Annual Conference and Award Ceremony

Published: 07 November 2012

Mental Health Nursing Forum, Scotland

7th Annual Conference and Practice Excellence Awards Ceremony Friday 14th December 2012

Delivering safer Mental Health Services in Scotlland, for more information please see attached flyer (PDF 1.5KB)

Annual Conference and Practice Excellence Awards: Background to the Mental Health Nursing Forum Scotland

The Mental Health Nursing Forum Scotland has been established to influence the future vision for and delivery of mental health nursing in Scotland. It aims to ensure that the mental health nursing profession is able to meet the needs of service users and carers by influencing both future policy development at a national level and the implementation of that policy at clinical practice level. The Forum seeks to achieve its aims through attainment of the following objectives:

• Sharing good practice across Scotland
• Influencing the national research agenda
• Influencing the development of nurse education
• Developing and implementing evidence based practice
• Defining and articulating the purpose and function of mental health nursing
• Identifying and debating challenging issues for the profession and taking appropriate action were required to influence future direction
• Developing a consensus view on key mental health nursing issues and those which impact on the profession, communicating those across key influential groups within nursing and other mental health professions
• Undertaking work to support the continued development of the profession on behalf of the Scottish Government where required
• Networking with key health, academic and social care groups across the country and beyond to influence the future vision and sole of mental health nursing.

The Awards for Good Practice in Mental Health Nursing 2012

The Forum has established the annual awards for the following reasons:

• In recognition of the significant contribution that nurses are making to the modernisation of mental health services across Scotland.
• To encourage the development and sharing of innovative nurse-led practice.
• To demonstrate the value of mental health nursing in the context of multi-disciplinary and inter-agency service provision.

Each year the award categories will be reviewed to ensure that they reflect national priorities for mental health nursing. This year - 2012 - the awards will be made for individual practitioner or team innovative practice in the following service areas:

1. Research / evidence into practice
2. Inpatient care (recovery, health promotion and addressing inequalities)
3. Community mental health nursing (recovery, health promotion and addressing inequalities)
4. Innovations in education
5. Dementia care
6. Increasing access to psychological therapies and interventions
7. The Award for Outstanding Achievement in any category
   (An overall award judged from the winners of the individual categories)